‘You don’t know who she is, do you?’ Marcus grinned. ‘Do you ever come out from behind that stethoscope of yours? That’s Scarlet.’
‘I know that.’
‘Anya’s daughter.’
‘Oh!’
Yes, Luke did know who Anya was. After all, she had been famous before he’d even been born, not that Luke paid much attention to such things, but he had seen Anya and her entourage leave the club. Now that he thought about it, he did recall that Anya had a daughter who went everywhere with her.
He glanced over and saw that Scarlet was trying to get away from some loud, obnoxious guy who was trying to drag her over to dance, and two burly men were moving in.
She was here with her own bodyguards, Luke realised, not the vague friends that she had alluded to. Now he understood Marcus’s friend’s odd look when he had come over.
Scarlet was a star.
‘She seems nice.’ Luke shrugged. She had. ‘Anyway, I’m heading off. I’ll go and settle the bar tab and put some more behind. You have a good night.’
As Luke went to the bar Scarlet came over.
‘Dance?’ she offered.
‘I’m just leaving.’
‘Just once dance,’ Scarlet persisted, but he shook his head.
‘Not with your bodyguards watching.’
‘You know who I am now, don’t you?’
‘Not really,’ Luke said. ‘I know two of your names and I’ve heard of your mother. You’re not a midwife, I take it?’ She shook her head and Luke glanced down at the bill he had just been given. ‘There should be champagne on there,’ he said to the bartender.
‘It’s on the house,’ the bartender said, and smiled at Scarlet as it dawned on Luke that she didn’t have to pay.
Scarlet’s presence in the club was more than enough.
It annoyed Luke.
Not that Scarlet had been playing him along—now that he understood why, it didn’t annoy him in the least—but he wanted to have bought her that drink.
‘Add it,’ Luke said, and handed back the bill.
‘Sure.’ The bartender shrugged.
He turned around and Scarlet was still there. ‘Take me with you,’ she said. Her arms went around his neck and Luke went to peel them off but then he heard the desperation in her voice. ‘Please.’ Scarlet closed her eyes. She was so tired of the noise and no doubt drama would await her when she returned to the hotel. It felt like for ever that she had been trying to escape. She looked up at Luke and he was so calm and so slightly bored with it all, as was she, and she gazed into his beautiful eyes. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’
‘You don’t need to offer sex, Scarlet.’
‘I want to spend some time with you.’
‘Why don’t you ask me to take you for dinner?’
‘Dinner?’ Scarlet frowned.
‘Well, it’s nearly one, so I’m not sure where.’ Luke smiled but he let her hands remain around his neck and his hands moved to her hips. The urge to kiss her was back.
‘I haven’t eaten since breakfast,’ Scarlet admitted.
It was almost that time again, Luke thought, but then he pushed that aside. Unlike most men, the thought of a one-night stand didn’t thrill him—his father’s perpetually roving eye meant that he’d lived with the fallout for long enough to learn from James Edwards’s mistakes.
‘You really want to take me for dinner?’
‘I do.’
‘I’m sorry I lied to you,’ Scarlet said. ‘I just wanted to see if you’d like me if I was normal.’
‘You are normal,’ Luke said.
As was his body’s reaction to her.
There was a need, an absolute need to get her away from here, to just talk, to get to know her some more and, yes, to get to that mouth.
‘Can you lose your bodyguards?’ Luke asked. He couldn’t stand the thought of them overseeing things. He wanted Scarlet away from the hype and he knew he would take good care of her. Judging by her previous offer to make it worth his while, they didn’t take proper care of her either.
‘I can’t.’ She shook her head. ‘You don’t get how it is—I can’t go anywhere without them.’
Luke didn’t play games.
Ever.
‘Can you lose your bodyguards?’ he asked again, and Scarlet heard the warning. If she said no, he’d be gone.
‘They’ll dial 911 if I disappear.’
‘Well, they shan’t get very far if they do,’ Luke said, and he told her the UK emergency number. ‘I’ll take care of you but I’m not buying you dinner with an audience.’
He wanted to take her for dinner!
‘I could go to the loo and try to...’
‘Climb out of the window?’ Luke scoffed at her plans. ‘Why don’t you simply tell them that you’re having a night off?’ But then he halted as he realised, for the first time, that life in her world wasn’t that simple.
‘Please take me for dinner,’ she said.
‘I’ll go outside and wait down the back,’ Luke offered. ‘If you can’t get out of the loo there will be an emergency exit. But,’ he warned, ‘if you tell your bodyguards what you’re up to, if I even get a hint that they’re around, I’ll hand you back over to them. I’m not going to be playing your celebrity game, Scarlet.’
Luke meant it.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHAT THE HELL was he doing? Luke thought as he stood in a cold, dark, basement alley next to bins and looked up at the tiny windows.
She’d never get through them, Luke realised.
Maybe she had changed her mind, Luke decided, because it had surely been ten or so minutes that he had been waiting. He was just about to give in when he saw one red shoe poke out of a very small gap in a window, followed by one skinny, pale leg and then another.
‘I’ve got you,’ Luke said, as he guided her legs out and tried not to notice that her dress was bunching up. He moved his hands from her flesh and then held her by the hips and negotiated Scarlet’s body out of the small opening. As he dropped her down to the ground he turned her around. She was breathless and Luke could see the exhilaration in her eyes.
Not just that she was free!
Scarlet’s dress was ruched up from her rather undignified exit and she could still feel where his hands had made contact with her thighs. Now she faced Luke and, despite his very cool demeanour, Scarlet knew that he was as turned on as she was.
Her hands moved up back around his neck and she moved into him for warmth and for confirmation of his arousal.
‘Oh,’ Scarlet said.
An odd remark perhaps but she could feel him on the length of her stomach and those hands on her hips let her rest there a moment. His voice when it came was a bit ragged.
‘Come on.’
He got the ‘Oh’ comment. Luke was feeling it too.
That urge to kiss was there and a whole lot of other urges too but a stinking dark alley wasn’t at the top of his wish list and her bodyguards would no doubt realise that she was missing some time very soon. So, rather than kiss her, Luke grabbed her hand and they ran up some metal stairs and out onto a seedy street and then turned into another.
Luke hailed a black cab and, a touch breathless, they both climbed in.
He gave the name of a restaurant that he knew stayed open late, which he had been to with friends a couple of times when he’d been in London. It was nice and low-key with booths where they could tuck themselves away and he could get to know her some more.
Luke wanted that.
He really did, but as the taxi took off, the driver glanced in the rear-view mirror and must have seen just who his fare was.
‘Scarlet!’ He turned and smiled and it annoyed Luke that Scarlet smiled back and that she and the driver started talking about Anya’s performance. Was it possible to have a conversation that didn’t include her mother?
‘Just drop us here,’ Luke said, as they reached a busier street. They walked into a different restaurant from the one he
would have chosen but the reaction to her was the same there and they left.
‘I told you...’ Scarlet said.
It was impossible.
No, it wasn’t.
Luke took off his jacket and put it around her and then he went into the pocket, took out a serviette and removed her trademark lipstick.
God, he wanted that mouth.
Luke saw a bus and pulled Scarlet onto it.
Instead of going up with the night riders, they sat downstairs for two stops.
‘Someone will recognise me...’ Scarlet said as they sat at the front.
‘Not with my face over yours...’ Luke had it all worked out.
He took her face in his hands and the shiver that went through Scarlet had nothing to do with the fact it had started to rain outside. He made her wait for first contact. She watched as he looked at her mouth and then back to her eyes and then their mouths met. She felt the first nudge of intimate flesh, a tiny precursor, a small tease, and then Scarlet found out that he had been holding back on her since they’d met because there was no tentativeness. He led this kiss, taking her lips between his and then parting them, only to expose bliss. It was a kiss of contrasts—his tongue was slow and tender and yet his jaw was rough and his hands kept her head steady, so there was nowhere to go but to taste and feel the bliss of Luke.
It felt like she’d never been properly kissed until now. They breathed together, their tongues mingled and probed and it took all Luke had to pull back as the bus jolted and to remember where they were.
He looked out at the dark, shiny streets and took her hand and they stood. ‘Come on...’ As her hand, in his, moved up to ring the bell he halted her. ‘Someone’s already rung it.’
‘I never have though.’
She pushed it and the driver moaned and she went to ring it again but Luke stopped her. The doors hissed open and they stepped out into the rain.
‘Where are we?’
They were just a short walk from his hotel. ‘We’re going for that dinner I promised you!’
‘And?’
‘That dance we never had,’ Luke said.
‘And?’ Scarlet asked, as she tried to keep up with his long strides, even though Luke wasn’t walking particularly fast, but he halted then and turned her to face him.
‘Let’s see how those two go.’
He really didn’t like one-night stands, they left him feeling like a user and he didn’t ever want to use her.
Luke was quite sure she’d had enough of that in her life.
Not just with men.
The free drinks for the crowd she pulled, the circus that was her life.
And, perhaps more pointedly, he didn’t have any condoms with him.
They walked to his hotel with his arm around her, passing through the foyer, and no one really noticed.
Without that exposed skin and red lips she didn’t stand out so much and he had her pulled tight into him.
The elevator was empty and as she went to resume a kiss he pointed a finger and told her to stand back.
‘Not here,’ Luke said.
He was very confident and a bit bossy and she wasn’t used to being refused.
‘I like you,’ Scarlet said, as she leant back against the elevator wall.
‘Good,’ Luke responded. ‘I like you too.’
Up they went to his suite and as the door closed on them, for Scarlet it felt like home. It just did. There was a suit holder over the chair and an overnight bag on the bed, which was open.
She thought he’d resume their kiss now that they were alone but instead he picked up a menu.
‘It’s after midnight so it’s just the night menu...’
‘Are we eating?’
‘You said that you were starving.’
‘Oh.’ Scarlet was very used to being starving.
She was starving all the time, in fact.
He handed her the menu and Scarlet instantly knew what she wanted. She usually stayed away from carbs but this was her night, her great escape. ‘I want the club sandwich.’ Then she changed her mind. ‘Maybe the burger.’
She couldn’t choose.
‘Both,’ Scarlet said, and Luke smiled and picked up the phone and placed their order. ‘Twenty minutes.’
‘Whatever will we do?’ Scarlet smiled and Luke watched as lifted the hem of her dress and went to peel it off.
‘Scarlet...’ He stopped her. ‘I hope we’re going to take more than twenty minutes and I don’t want interruptions.’ Luke watched as she went over to the bed and lay back, sulking. ‘They said that we should order breakfast now if we want it delivered in the morning.’ He picked up the menu cards that would need to be hung outside the door. ‘What?’ he said when he saw that she was staring.
‘I want a kiss.’
‘Let’s sort this out first. Tomato, pineapple or grapefruit juice...’
‘Grapefruit.’ Scarlet sighed, and he pulled a face. ‘Don’t you like it?’
‘Too sharp,’ Luke said, and he ticked pineapple for himself.
‘Don’t you like me?’
‘Why do you ask that?’ Luke asked. ‘I don’t need you on your knees within the hour to like you, Scarlet.’
He guessed she wasn’t very used to that.
And he did like her and want her.
But it was more than that...
She picked up a wad of paper that was beside his overnight bag. ‘What’s this?’
‘Just notes I made for my interview.’
‘Were you nervous?’
‘No,’ Luke said, and then glanced up to see she was really reading his notes.
‘What was it like?’
‘It was an interview.’ Luke shrugged but then thought about it and realised that, unless it was for the media, Scarlet wouldn’t know so he amended his earlier response. ‘I wasn’t nervous because I was quite sure I wouldn’t get the role. Now I am nervous because I want it.’
‘Do you think you’ll get it?’
‘I think so.’
‘So why be nervous?’
Luke usually left such conversations where he had first left this one—at a shrug. There was no point discussing it till he knew if the role was his, but Scarlet was curious rather than nosy and he forgot about breakfast for a moment and, to his own surprise, told her something that was on his mind.
‘My ex works there,’ Luke said. ‘We only broke up last month. I need to speak to her about it.’
‘Why?’ Scarlet asked. ‘Do you still fancy her?’
‘No.’
‘Does she still fancy you?’
‘No.’ Luke smiled. ‘It was a long overdue break up.’
‘No problem, then.’ It was Scarlet who shrugged this time. ‘I don’t believe you, though.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Can you ever unfancy someone?’
‘Actually, yes.’ Right up to the moment the words left his mouth Luke had believed it, but in that split second he disbelieved it also.
Not when he looked at Scarlet, who had just kicked off her shoes and was still reading through his notes. Her knees were up and she rested on the pillow, holding the paper above her face, rather than sitting up to read. He could see the hollow of her stomach and the jut of her nipples through her dress and then she moved the papers so that she could see him and smiled.
And Luke doubted if he could, as Scarlet put it, ever unfancy her.
‘Breakfast,’ Luke said, and tried to take care of the morning.
‘I don’t eat breakfast,’ Scarlet said. ‘Just a coffee.’
And again, for Luke, everything changed. He wanted dinner over and done with, he wanted to dance, and then he wanted her naked and writhing in the bed.
‘You’re going to be starving in the morning, Scarlet,’ Luke said.
Something in his voice had her throat tighten and she put down the paperwork.
‘Then you’d better read me the menu.’
‘Cereal, muesli?’
‘Muesli.�
��
‘Full cream or—’
‘Full cream, I think,’ Scarlet interrupted. ‘Don’t you?’
With each tick they got sexier.
‘Toast?’ He looked at Scarlet and she shook her head.
‘Too many crumbs.’
She came over and stood in front of him and they read it together.
‘Ooh, bacon,’ Scarlet said. ‘That’s very forbidden.’
Hurry with that dinner, Luke thought, because he was pressing her bottom into him and his face was in her hair and he wanted to turn her around and have her against the wall.
And she wanted him so badly, in a way she never had. His hand pressed onto her stomach and now his mouth was on her neck and his kiss to her skin was so sexy and gentle.
‘I was watching you from the moment you came in,’ Scarlet said.
Luke turned her around and looked down at her. ‘I wanted you from the moment I turned around.’
There was a knock at the door. He was tempted, so tempted to ignore it, to call to leave it outside, but, no, they should have dinner.
As the trolley was brought in, Scarlet turned on the television and found a music channel.
Luke paid the tip and as soon as the door closed they faced each other. Luke took off his shirt.
Then his shoes. And she watched as he stripped.
What a body.
Muscular, lean and very, very male, given she was used to men more waxed and bald than even she was.
‘You have hairy legs.’ Scarlet smiled.
‘I wouldn’t make it off the rugby field alive if I didn’t.’
Scarlet peeled off her dress in one easy motion and Luke made no moved to stop her as she took off her tiny knickers and took her seat at the little table.
The burger was fantastic.
Fat, juicy, and when some onion fell on her breast, Luke kindly retrieved it for her with his fingers and they fed each other dinner.
It was the most amazing meal she had ever had because it came from his fingers.
He’d be laughed off the rugby field if they could see him because Scarlet was bringing food to his mouth and he didn’t just suck on her fingers, he kissed her palm deeply. When the meal was over, Luke stood.
‘Dance?’ he said.
With just her shoes on, Scarlet stood.
The Socialite's Secret Page 4
